Slashes, Dashes, Points, and Squares: The Development of Musical Notation

Abstract

The development of musical notation has long been a popular topic of discussion among musicologists. All cultures in the world have music and different cultures had methods of notating music. The purpose of the research was to trace the development of music notation and to see if the modern methods of notation are superior to the older methods. The development of music notation in western music was closely tied to the church and the Gregorian chant. Early neumes resembled points and slashes, which developed into squares when the staff stated to develop. The first staff was only four lines where our modern staff is five lines. Mensuration symbols developed when a need to measure and count time in music, these were precursors to our modern time signatures and clefs. The modern notation method is not better than the older methods simply different, showing the age old saying newer is not always better to be true. As the oral developed into more of a written tradition the way the notation was used changed. When neumes were first used they acted as a guide and as time went on the notation used became closer to exact instructions which is how our modern notation works. In each stage of notational development the notation fulfilled the role it was called upon to play. In early neumatic notation the neumes gave the amount of notes that needed to be sung, which with the oral tradition was all the information that was needed. The oral tradition and the written tradition now seem to be in competition with each other like the Suzuki method and the traditional note methods. This was not always the case; the written tradition in the early tenth century supported the oral tradition. That does not make either method better than the other only different. The research for this project was done through historical documentation; books on medieval and renaissance music theory and notation were used. Journal articles relating to this topic such as mensuration and music literacy were also used